Clever sales tactic or plain unethical?

It’s a well-known secret among Realtors: to make a stale listing appear “hot,” sellers/agents will remove a property from the MLS (multiple listing service) only to re-list it under a new MLS number so it looks like the house is new to the market. The upshot? It can be extremely difficult for a buyer to tell how long a house has been shopped around unless they follow the market closely.

Clearly, it’s an effective marketing strategy, otherwise agents wouldn’t use it so often. But is it ethical? A commenter in a Redfin forum raised the question after he noticed information about a specific listing was removed from the site. It turned out that the agent changed the status of the listing so that only other agents could see the detailed information.

If buyers could access the MLS, it seems like it would be fair game for agents to play delisting games — after all, people who are about to pony up a few hundred thousand on a house, ought to do their research. But are the negotiations fair if buyers aren’t privy to basic information, like how long the property has been on the market?